A Week Without Shoes

We all take things for granted. Our clothes, our house, our water, our electricity, our freedom to say what we want, our freedom to believe what we want, our shoes.

A few months ago, God placed it on my heart to go without shoes for 1 week to see what it was like to not have shoes, just like most of the world, and to learn to appreciate what He has given me.

One week couldn't be that bad, could it?

I waited until the end of April because I didn't want to get frostbite on my feet. I still ended up walking in the snow. From a friend's dorm back to my house. I ran barefoot in the snow. I ran because my feet were getting numb and I wanted to get home where it was warm.

It was a challenge. I have blisters on the balls of both feet and some of my toes.

I sincerely hope that I, and whoever reads this, will not take for granted anything that I have: my many shirts (way more than I need), my several pairs of pants (a pair of pants with holes in it is still a good pair of pants, it does still provide the function that pants are intended for), the house I live in (there are many people, even in a relatively well-off community such as Fargo-Moorhead, who are homeless), my car (which is now broken down, but it was useful when it ran), my bike (which I just found on Monday for free on the boulevard. I was lucky to find one in one piece, let alone one that just needed a quick tune-up to be ridable. Lucky for me, there were free tune-ups on campus the next day), my shoes (I own 2 pairs that only have small holes in them, and a pair that has no holes. That's 3 more pairs than a huge percentage of the world's population), my friends (I am truly lucky to have gotten such great friends and I often take them for granted or treat them in terrible manners), my family (I may fight with them a lot, but I love them), my God (Whose grace I am far from deserving), and my God's forgiveness (which I should have worn out long ago, but, lucky for all of us, is unending).

My feet after a week of going barefoot. They are raw, blistered, calloused, in pain, and thankful that I have shoes and will be wearing them again.

So let us never forget how much we have and always appreciate the little things that make our life great.